The Resurrection
The very first words in the Nicene Creed regarding eschatology are, “We look for the resurrection of the dead.” Perhaps the single most important topic to consider as far as the culmination of God’s work in our midst is concerned, is the physical resurrection of every human being. The resurrection is the source of all true Christian hope for eternal life. It is at this point that Christian hope is at extremely sharp distinction from all forms of pagan hope.
Pagan hope is rooted in humanity in one way or another. In the ancient world, the finality of death was seen as an enemy. Early stories, such as the epic of Gilgamesh, wrestle with the problem of mortality. If human beings are all destined to die, what joy can there be in life? The quest for immortality was seen to be futile at best, that the only immortality that one can expect is to live on in the memories of others. This was one of the great motivations to strive for greatness. The greater one becomes, the more likely they are to attain immortality in the memories of their fellow human beings. Great kings made monuments to themselves, others achieved fame in military victory. According to this way of thinking, those such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and others have reached the greatest heights to which human beings are capable, an everlasting place in classroom textbooks. This is somewhat less than the everlasting life claimed by the Gospel.
Another pagan way to hope is that, by giving one’s life to a cause, the cause will one day see realization. While this has no doubt happened for many causes, many others have failed in spite of such radical self-giving. It must be said that many Christians have given their lives for good causes and have done so, not in a pagan, but in a Christian, way. However, when the causes we support become important in themselves and not because they are part of the ministry of Christ in the world, they have lapsed into Paganism, in spite of our best intentions.
The Christian hope is not in human beings at all, but in the love and promise of God. Every day, people are buried and we are not seeing them return to life. The graves remain occupied and countless examples have shown that there is no life after death. And yet, Christian hope does not depend on having a bunch of examples of resurrection in our daily experience. Instead, the Christian hopes in God, in the promise that God will not leave his promise unfulfilled, that we will one day be raised from the dead.
But on what is this promise based? Is it simply a word in a book to which we cling? Far from it. The Christian believes that God will raise him or her from the dead, not because they read that Jesus raised a few people during his earthly ministry. After all, those whom he raised to life at that time suffered and died again. The Christian believes in the resurrection because Christ has been raised in glory and ascended to the right hand of the Father. What is more, even this is not a belief that finally rests merely on a text, but one that is grounded in the fact that the Christian has truly encountered this risen Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lives, even today and forevermore and it is in light of his resurrection that the Christian trusts the promise that they, too, will be raised.
This is an important point and must not be forgotten. It is not a coincidence that theologians who deny Christ’s physical resurrection (in favor of a merely spiritual “resurrection,” whatever that may be) have very little to offer in terms of hope for an afterlife. Many deny the resurrection as modern, enlightened people who want to speak to other modern, enlightened people. However, the moment they do so, they have lost the real word that God has given to us skeptical, self-sufficient modern people. In spite of our medical advances and our increased life spans, every human being is still destined to die. None of our modern science has been able to overcome that fact, and it pains modern humanity deeply. Death still looms over us and stares us in the face. Death has not become less painful but more so. The word of hope given in the resurrection is precisely what modern ears need to hear.
Other Implications of the Resurrection
The resurrection is not just one belief among others that Christians hold. It has profound implications for many other areas of life. A few of these will be considered here. First, it is the promise that death, in spite of the finality it seems to have, will not have the final word. The grave could not hold the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so it will not hold ours as those joined to him. All the pain and sorrow that seem to rule our world of space and time will one day be shown to be lesser powers when compared to the almighty power of God. The disease that ravages our bodies, the tragedies that take people before their time, are all exposed to be contrary to God’s final plan and wrongs will be righted before the end.
The next major implication is that the resurrection shows us that God cares deeply, not just for our souls, but also for our bodies. Indeed, it shows us that our bodies are just as fully part of who we are as our souls. We began to understand how important our bodies were when we considered the Incarnation, because God did not just assume a human soul, but entered into a human body from conception onward. However, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, if the body remained in the tomb forever, we would have doubts about how seriously we are to take our bodies. The fact that the physical Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he endures forever, shows us that our bodies are things that will be radically transformed, mysteriously regenerated, but never utterly discarded. Our bodies are loved by God; so much so that God has taken a human body upon himself forever.
This has a major consequence. It means that, just as Jesus was resurrected and then ascended, where he remains incarnate forever, our afterlife, where we are in full communion with the Triune God, will be an embodied afterlife. The New Testament does not know anything of a real existence without being an embodied existence (which causes some confusion, as will be seen below). This is important because there have been many thinkers throughout the years, even as brilliant and influential as Thomas Aquinas, who have conceived of our eternal existence in purely spiritual terms. This owes far more to Greek thought, where the body is seen as evil and needs to be disposed of, than Hebrew and Christian understanding. Our resurrection and eternal existence is truly embodied.
This has a further implication. The question has been often asked, “Will we recognize those we knew on earth when we are in heaven?” There are various ways to answer this question, drawing on one or another passage of scripture. However, it seems best (and most consistent with the entire method of this work) to look at the actual resurrected body of Christ. We have reflected that sometimes, Jesus’ disciples recognized who he was and other times did not. Further, when they do recognize him, it is not primarily because of what he looks like. It is in the breaking of bread, in his calling them by name, by his success in predicting a miraculous catch of fish (again). The answer according to the actual New Testament witness seems to be that we will indeed recognize our loved ones, but that recognition will not be as we expect, and perhaps will even be surprising to us.
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